When will Third Party Vega Boards be available?

[Grall]

Ok, speculation-fun-time, people! It's been nearly 3 months now past the time AMD said 3rd party Vega boards would be available, SO:

When do YOU think we'll see 3rd party Vega in shops, before or after Xmas? Before or after new year's? Not in 1st quarter entirely...?

I'm feeling pessimistic, and considering the holidays and the inevitable delays they bring with them, I'm saying not until january. ...At least.

 

[BRiT]

Ok, speculation-fun-time, people! It's been nearly 3 months now past the time AMD said 3rd party Vega boards would be available, SO:

When do YOU think we'll see 3rd party Vega in shops, before or after Xmas? Before or after new year's? Not in 1st quarter entirely...?

I'm feeling pessimistic, and considering the holidays and the inevitable delays they bring with them, I'm saying not until january. ...At least.

Never. They're waiting on the next product revision before going custom third party board designs.

 

[Grall]

@BRiT

Heat death of the universe, eh? Someone's even more pessimistic than I am... lol

Waiting for a new revision would be interesting, but shouldn't they at least say SOMETHING with regards to availability? Even if that means acknowledging that there won't be product for the foreseeable future. What are the rules about stock companies making promises and then blatantly breaking them? If any at all that is...

 

[entity279]

Technically, Gygabyte, Powercolor and the likes are already selling Vega based products. The custom PCP , custom cooling part are implementation details that can't be reasonably comunicated to shareholders. And hence cant be enforced

 

[Malo]

Technically, Gygabyte, Powercolor and the likes are already selling Vega based products.

Do you really need to have "custom" added to the thread title? We all know what we're talking about here.

 

[entity279]

You've taken my post out of its context. I've aknowledged that we here may think otherwise by qualyfing it with "technically"

 

[Grall]

Technically, Gygabyte, Powercolor and the likes are already selling Vega based products.

All they're doing is putting their labels on a reference card either bought straight from AMD or built exactly to reference design/specs, using identical components (probably by AMD's reference design manufacturer, whomever that is.)

I can't remember the precise wording AMD used at the time (it was all the way back in june after all), but as I recall, it was fairly obvious they meant custom cards to be available early september. Not re-badged reference boards.

 

[entity279]

That's exactly right. My line was that while this is fairly obvious to us consumers, it won't be to the shareholders you've alluded to.

Anyway AMD can't be held accountable (at least by the info available to us) , as its up to board manufacturers to actually create the custom designs

 

[DrYesterday]

There is a rumor that AMD is capacity limited and is choosing which products to allocate wafers to. Right now it should be clear that AMD is making more profit on Ryzen, Epyc server chips and Ryzen Mobile. These products look to be strongly increasing in volume over the next six months. So if it is true that AMD is capacity limited, AMD won't have any Vega wafers to for custom cards any time soon. AMD would make less profit by fabbing more Vega wafers. AMD could move VEGA to TSMC, but this would increase production costs. AMD has to pay GF for every wafer that TSMC makes. This could kill the rumored very small profit AMD is making on VEGA. I trust that AMD has looked at all the options and chosen the profitable path.

 

[Bondrewd]

AMD could move VEGA to TSMC, but this would increase production costs

That implies porting Vega10 to a different node, which in itself is costly.
Besides, if they've ever expected any problems with capacity, they'd fab it at TSMC to begin with.

 

[DrYesterday]

Besides, if they've ever expected any problems with capacity, they'd fab it at TSMC to begin with.

Exactly. I should have added that, Last year, for the Wafer Supply Agreement, AMD specifically negotiated the ability to outsource wafers at TSMC and other fabs. AMD anticipated the possibility of being capacity limited, and worked out a solution in 2016. 3Q revenues were up 25% year over year. I find it difficult to believe that AMD planned it to be capped out at 25% growth, with Ryzen, Epyc and Vega all in the works.

The other option is that AMD is not capacity limited, yet is purposely underproducing Vega. Could be AMD is waiting for a new stepping, a migration to 12nm, HBM2 shortages/pricing, Navi.

 

[Bondrewd]

Could be AMD is waiting for a new stepping, a migration to 12nm, HBM2 shortages/pricing, Navi.

Unlikely/would announce a refresh coming to begin with/unlikely/unlikely.
All in all, AMD probably did not anticipate Ryzen selling this well.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

@Grall they'll probably become available when the Redux driver releases, which should be in the next couple of weeks.

Leaked pics of 3rd party boards have been available for weeks at videocardz. IMO the board makers are waiting for a driver with a substantial performance boost to put their cards in a better light when they're reviewed.


Though IMHO the default cooler is pretty damn good if you just use power saving mode (which should be default mode to be honest).





What I would like to know is when the Vega Nano releases. Tim Sweeney has been holding on to one for almost half a year.

 

[kalelovil]

What I would like to know is when the Vega Nano releases. Tim Sweeney has been holding on to one for almost half a year.

Is there much of a market for it?
The Fury Nano was expensive (at release) but at least significantly faster than Nvidia's competition in the form factor (GTX 970 mITX).
This generation's GTX 1080 mITX is much tougher form factor competition (because the AMD-Nvidia power consumption gap has widened).

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Here they are:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12080/xfx-to-release-custom-radeon-rx-vega-double-edition-cards

Before Christmas is a good bet.

Is there much of a market for it?
The Fury Nano was expensive (at release) but at least significantly faster than Nvidia's competition in the form factor (GTX 970 mITX).
This generation's GTX 1080 mITX is much tougher form factor competition (because the AMD-Nvidia power consumption gap has widened).

The Vega Nano doesn't have to be significantly more expensive than Vega 64. It could simply be a Vega 64 that defaults to power saving mode and gets more aggressive clock variance with a 180W TDP.
Performance could be just ~6% lower than Vega 64 and it would compete with the mini ITX 1080 in price and form factor.


Besides, the only mini ITX 1080 I've seen in my 10 second google search is the one from Gigabyte, and that card's PCB is so much wider than the standard ATX bracket that I wonder if it actually fits in many mini ITX cases.
In comparison, the PCB on this new custom Vega 64 from XFX is tiny:

It's barely any wider than the bracket, and less than a half a cm longer than the PCI Express' "retention finger" (I don't know how it's named, I just came up with it).

 

[Bondrewd]

Is there much of a market for it?

No. It's a niche product, and it's positioned as such.
And it's very cute.

 

[digitalwanderer]

There is a rumor that AMD is capacity limited and is choosing which products to allocate wafers to. Right now it should be clear that AMD is making more profit on Ryzen, Epyc server chips and Ryzen Mobile. These products look to be strongly increasing in volume over the next six months. So if it is true that AMD is capacity limited, AMD won't have any Vega wafers to for custom cards any time soon. AMD would make less profit by fabbing more Vega wafers. AMD could move VEGA to TSMC, but this would increase production costs. AMD has to pay GF for every wafer that TSMC makes. This could kill the rumored very small profit AMD is making on VEGA. I trust that AMD has looked at all the options and chosen the profitable path.

Exactly. I should have added that, Last year, for the Wafer Supply Agreement, AMD specifically negotiated the ability to outsource wafers at TSMC and other fabs. AMD anticipated the possibility of being capacity limited, and worked out a solution in 2016. 3Q revenues were up 25% year over year. I find it difficult to believe that AMD planned it to be capped out at 25% growth, with Ryzen, Epyc and Vega all in the works.

The other option is that AMD is not capacity limited, yet is purposely underproducing Vega. Could be AMD is waiting for a new stepping, a migration to 12nm, HBM2 shortages/pricing, Navi.

My emphasis added, but wow thank you! Not only does that make sense, it fits with a personal theory of mine about what's going on behind the scenes and it helps to make a LOT of the pieces that weren't fitting before fit now and I'm starting to understand a bit deeper into the behind the curtains stuff and now I know a bit more about what to look for. Sincere appreciations!

 

[Grall]

It's barely any wider than the bracket, and less than a half a cm longer than the PCI Express' "retention finger" (I don't know how it's named, I just came up with it).

The cooler attached to the card is slightly longer than the retention hook though. One has to wonder if XFX would maybe perhaps release a mini variety of Vega using the same PCB along with a smaller heatsink. It'd be pretty sweet for those who desire tiny gaming PCs.

And crimson redux, yeah. I'm waiting for this baby, oh man. Here's to hoping it'll scare some hidden horsepower out of vega... *edit: board doesn't support unicode emoji? baaahhh... Person with folded hands

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Gigabyte oficially releases its card:
https://www.techpowerup.com/239247/gigabyte-launches-radeon-rx-vega-gaming-oc-windforce-2x-series


Powercolor oficially releases its card:
https://www.techpowerup.com/239246/powercolor-officially-launches-radeon-rx-vega-red-devil-series

with review:
https://overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/powercolor_vega_64_red_devil_review/1

 

[Malo]

lol 3rd parties have got to be asking themselves "why are we making these?". Terrible results for that Red Devil, worse than reference.